


In the Beginning

by Jenna Hilary Sinclair (JennaHilary)



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 07:42:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11619051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JennaHilary/pseuds/Jenna%20Hilary%20Sinclair
Summary: Kirk and Spock, a shuttlecraft, a child, and what is meant to be. Bad things happen to children in this story, but please remember that all is not what it seems to be.





	In the Beginning

Listen to me. Learn. This is one of the Great Tales, shot through with truth even in these days of star travel and much knowledge. Listen.

There was a star in our own Alpha quadrant, in the deserted area of space known as the Dragon’s Tail. Yes, the demon Dragon, wretched be his name, had swept the stars from the sky in his anger, and only his tail, a long lonely line of stars, occupied the space, twisting and curling in rage-filled need. This star was at the tip of his tail, which was sharp and spiked and dangerous, and it existed far away from any others.

This red and burning star had one lonely planet, circling just far enough from its sun to be barely habitable. Not much had evolved there, some plants like lichens, a few stubborn ferns. It was hot, and most of the water that had allowed life to form had long boiled away. Dusty brown and gray rock, streaked with an occasional burst of flaming crimson, dominated the landscape and formed the whole crust of this arid, ugly planet.

But on this planet there was more. Spawn of the Dragon lurked here, set down in ages past. Long it lurked behind the rocks and boulders, long it reached out scaly fingers to tear at the ferns and the few bushes. It trampled them while it grew in obscurity, waiting for the time when it reached its full strength, and when its parent would call and together they would burst from the planet in proud resentment. It waited and it waited, it howled at the barren sky, it grew and wanted. But the Dragon did not come to claim its own.

And so the day came when the evil eye opened to its fullest extent, and the spawn became the Eye. It reached out past the swirling dust of the atmosphere, out and further out, seeking it knew not what. Companionship in anger? Something to kill? We do not know. It is not for mortal being to know the mind of the Ancients. But in each of us, does not a small part of the Dragon lurk? His seed? There is a part of us that understands.

So traveling within the void, the Eye perceived a small space vehicle, a shuttlecraft from a place called the United Federation of Planets. On it were beings who took in air, and spoke, who had companions and lived lives like ours, and this filled the Eye--which could see all but knew nothing--with jealousy. It moved closer, tracked the ship, and finally touched it. 

There was James Kirk, the captain of a great starship, with a face and form of beauty. He was human, similar to us in many ways but without knowledge of the Great Tales, and he was almost one of those of whom the Lesser Songs might be sung. I say _almost,_ for while Kirk was kissed by the celestial ones and approached that completeness of being to which we all aspire, still he lacked. Even he knew he lacked, but he knew not what to search for. His whole life he had been restless, and this restlessness drove him to the ships that sailed the stars. Of course the Mother drove him and loved him, but he did not know her as we know her. Among the stars he had learned and almost _become,_ but he had not learned enough. No songs were sung of him. 

Kirk sat in a seat at the front of the shuttle. One of the things he had become was a leader, and the Eye saw it.

“Something wrong, Spock?”

“Negative, Captain. For a moment the sensors registered an anomalous mass, but I believe it was merely a plasma concentration.”

“Out here? That doesn’t seem likely.”

“But possible. The odds are one thousand, one hundred and seventeen to one.”

“One thousand, one hundred and seventeen? That’s all? What happened to the decimal point and precision?” 

“I would not wish to bore you with excessive computations.”

“You could never bore me, Mister Spock. Keep an eye on that reading.” 

With the human called Kirk was Spock, his second-in-command on the starship and on the small shuttlecraft as well. This Spock was a curiosity, like the langa that mates with the turilian and produces the shan. A human and a Vulcan had begotten him, and so he was caught in the currents of two separate seas, never knowing where to swim. Ayieee! This poor misbegotten one. And yet such was his strength that he too was one of whom a Lesser Song might be sung. He almost was as well. Though his mind was different from ours, it was no less honored by the Mother. 

And he had found his heart!

But, ah, there was the incompleteness. He did not use it all. You look at me with your mouth open, not understanding. Yes, yes, I tell you, this one had found his heart, already held it in his hand as we all hope in our last days to do, and yet some of its fruits he hoarded to himself as an old man hoards the minutes. How is this possible? you ask. I do not know. The Mother knows all. I only know that this tale is true, and you must listen. 

The irony here is great. Spock was beloved by the Mother, for he had been given such a heart as we pray for. Its light, unshielded, would make the greatest stars in the sky bow their heads in shame. Even the smallest pieces of his heart were worthy. 

But still, he kept it shielded. It remained hidden and therefore incomplete. His world was one of numbers and logic and equations, of problems dispassionately proposed and even more dispassionately solved. 

The Eye lurked outside their ship in the airless nothing it breathed.

“Our smallest passenger seems to find you quite fascinating.”

“She is a curious child.”

“I almost busted a gut trying not to laugh when she wanted to touch your ears.”

“Indeed, I observed your contortions and found them somewhat amusing.”

“But you let her touch them.”

“Was there a reason I should have declined her request?”

“No . . . . No, I guess not. It just seemed . . . unusual.” 

“It is not often that I am in the company of a four-year-old human girl who is not hesitant to engage me in conversation. I find that refreshing.” 

“You don’t usually find the company of . . . human females . . . refreshing, do you?” 

“I have no difficulty in relating to human females under normal professional and social settings. However, I presume a different context for your question. Within that context, you are correct. I do not . . . appreciate them. Is that what you wished to know?” 

“Uh-huh . . . . Lately, I don’t always appreciate them, either. But your little friend is cute.”

“She is not within the context of which we are speaking.”

“Of course not! I swear, Spock, sometimes your sense of humor--”

“I believe our passengers are awakening. Perhaps it is time for some food and drink.”

“ . . . Are you hungry?”

“ . . . At times.”

“Me too. At times. I’ll get something for the kids and their dad. You take the con.” 

You see how things were between them. Unusual, yes, for the Mother to bless two men with a desire for each other, but when it happens, such a gift! We honor those men. Yagool and Seimanid, the two warriors who grace the southern sky, standing behind the same shield, united against the same foe. Chanti, the Mother’s heartbeat, and Hai, the Mother’s breast, forever bound together in one flesh. These are blessed by her, and the celestial ones sing their praises. To be a taker, and learn to give, within the mortal lifespan! Completeness, indeed. Blessed are they. 

But James Kirk and Spock had talked like this before, and never had their words led them where they were destined to go. Before them were two paths, and though they sometimes strayed to the path less often walked, always they returned to the path they knew. You might call them cowards. Hypocrites. But remember, they knew not the Mother. 

On board the small craft were three others: the girl-child who touched Spock’s ears, her hair dark and her eyes dancing, her older brother almost-a-man, and their father. They awakened from their sleep, and they ate as James Kirk provided, and they talked in the human fashion during their meal. Eventually the girl went to the front of the craft to speak to Spock again. She trailed a toy with her, a cloth representation of a fierce animal from her home planet. 

She showed the toy bear to the half-Vulcan and they spoke of such things as she could comprehend, and when the captain returned from being with the others he found the girl sitting on Spock’s lap. She pointed to objects on the control panel, and the second-in-command explained them to her in simple terms. 

I have said that the captain lacked, but it was not love he lacked. That had burned within fiercely for a long time. His eyes widened at the sight of the girl sitting there so intimately, for Vulcans do not like to be touched, and especially Spock did not wish to be touched. It was something James Kirk had wanted to do for as long as he had loved. But he had never dared. 

Yet when he saw the touching, he smiled. For it seemed, for some reason, that Spock took pleasure from the girl and her innocence, and he wished his friend to have pleasure of every kind.

Kirk slid into the seat beside the two and he caught Spock’s gaze, and between a smile on the lips and a smile in the eyes, they shared the moment. 

“Looks like you have a new pupil, Mister Spock.”

“Indeed, Captain, a most apt one.”

“He’s teaching me things.” 

“Yes, he is. Mister Spock is an excellent teacher, the best one on the Enterprise.”

“Does he teach you things, Captain?”

“Indeed he does, little one.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, things about Vulcans. His people. Mister Spock was telling me just the other day about katras.” 

“What are those?”

“It’s a little hard to explain. Spirit. Soul. Do you know about those things?”

“Yes, I do. It’s ’posed to be the part of me that isn’t my arms or my legs or anything else you can touch. And it won’t ever die. Daddy told me that. But he says he’s not sure ’bout the not dying part. Do you know, Mister Spock? Do we go on forever?”

“I know about Vulcans. It is a fact that the Vulcan katra exists after the body’s demise. About the human soul, even its existence, there is uncertainty.” 

“Then I wish I was Vulcan. I wanna know for sure. I wanna live forever.”

It was then, during this talk of eternity, that the Eye struck. It roared, and the little ship upon the darkest sea was buffeted by its anger. 

The Eye, that saw all but knew nothing, hated all it perceived on the craft. It hated the way the child sat with confidence and ease and the way the father loved his young ones. It hated James Kirk for his honor and the competence that fueled his ambition, and it abhorred the heart that beat the Mother’s rhythm in Spock’s deepest soul. Most of all, it hated James Kirk and Spock together for understanding each other and for the gift they had been given. 

For the Spawn of the Dragon was lonely from its long years of exile and wished to destroy all it did not have.

The child was tossed from Spock’s lap and hit her head against the control panel, hard. Though the Vulcan grabbed for her, he was too late, for also he thought to work the controls to stop the shuttle’s wild pitching, and those who are divided in intention are seldom successful. It was the captain who punched in the thrusters, erected the shields, and steered the ship away from the turbulent area of space.

“What the hell was that?” 

“Unknown. Calibrating scanners now. Ambassador, please tend to your daughter.” 

But the ambassador did not answer. He also had been thrown from his seat and now he lay on the floor, senseless. The boy sat huddled in a corner, cradling his arm and crying. 

The captain cursed in the manner of his people, and then he reached for the girl. This was dangerous, as he did not know when or if the sudden turbulence would return, but it was one of the ways that these humans are like us. They put life above all else, but because they do not know the Mother, they never know what is to become of them after the body’s life is over. Humans are very brave people, for they often risk the lives they treasure, and James Kirk was among the very bravest. 

“Captain, I can--”

“I can’t read the sensors like you can. Find out what happened. I’ll take care of her. Them.” 

“Acknowledged.”

While Spock used his sensor instruments, Kirk cared for the others, giving painkiller to the boy and administering other medicine to the father. For the girl he could do little other than the painkiller. She awakened and moaned and cried, he cleaned the blood from her head, but the instrument he held showed that there was more bleeding inside. He did not know what to do for her. He looked at the intent form of his friend, remembering how the Vulcan had allowed the child to touch him, and he was sad as he placed a blanket over the child. She blinked at him and smiled through her tears and her fear, and Kirk smiled back, although there was no happiness in his heart. After this he returned to the front of the craft.

“Anything?”

“Perhaps. The anomalous reading has returned. A mere fifty kilometers to starboard. It appears to be nothing but a concentration of plasma molecules, including formaldehyde, methane and ammonia.” 

“How could that have thrown us off course?”

“Unknown. It may not be the causative agent. However, I have no other explanation.”

“Hmm. We’ll know soon enough. Transfer co-ordinates of plasma concentration--”

“Already on your navigation console, Captain.”

“Thank you, Mister Spock. Let’s make a wide detour around that thing.”

“The condition of our passengers?”

“I don’t know. She really hit her head hard. We need to get them treatment. Okay, course locked in. Engage.”

But they found they could not move away from the all-seeing Eye. It struck, shaking the shuttlecraft as you or I would shake a rattlebox for music. Up and down, back and forth, unrelenting, forcing the little ship further from its course and closer to the almost-dead planet where the Eye had lived. Before they could engage their safety harnesses, the people inside were thrown from their seats and banged against each other, against the walls and all the sharp edges and hard objects inside. 

The Eye was enraged, perhaps because it was frightened. Despite its great strength, here were things it did not understand. This was the first time it had left its planet, and these beings it could not fathom. How often have we hated the things we do not know, because we are afraid? And for the Ancients, it was the same. 

For hours the attack went on. There was nothing those on the small ship could do to stop it or protect themselves. Kirk attempted to travel away from the Eye but could not. The shields that they depended on to repel enemies and other harmful things were useless against this enemy. Spock attempted to create a weapon to charge the hull of the ship, and he did, but it was ineffective against the plasma creature. For what is the Eye made of, that it can be opposed? The nothingness of thought is yet the most powerful force of all. And the terror of seeing all, as the Eye did, without understanding, is dreadful.

The boy died when the craft’s internal gravity momentarily shorted out and then returned, and he crashed into an overhead panel that splintered from the impact of his body. The girl they bundled into more blankets and double-lashed to a chair that was bolted to the floor of the cabin. They did the same for the father, but after those two were safe the Eye grew even more enraged, and it gave the captain and his first officer no chance to return to the relative safety of their seats and harnesses. James Kirk and his friend Spock were like two twigs in a spring floodtide. They clung to chairs, to each other, but by the time the attack was over, they were sorely hurt. 

For finally there was an end to the hours-long ordeal. The Eye took the shuttlecraft, dragged it screaming through the atmosphere of the ugly, dried-up planet, and slammed it on the bitter rocks that were its surface. 

There was a long silence inside the craft. Panels hung open and twisted, wires sparked and flared, and bodies were unnaturally still. 

Then Spock stirred, for he was much stronger than the others. He pushed himself up from the floor on shaking arms, ignoring his own pains. 

“Jim?” 

... ... ... 

“Jim?” 

It was dark inside the shuttle, with only dim emergency floorlights, but Spock always seemed to know where his captain was, just as Yagool had found Seimanid on their fateful day. But Spock was unlike the king, for he loved in silence and in small deeds of devotion. He denied himself, and James Kirk whom he loved, the full flowering of the Mother as expressed through his hands, his lips, and his body’s worship. But, ah, though he walked in the ways of his father’s house, which inconceivably made such twisted restraint a virtue, still he loved in the only way he knew how. Pity this half-breed son of the night, for he struggled with the beauty within. 

So it was that even in the darkness, with no sound, he knew where to find the pulse of his heart. He crawled on hands and knees down the entire length of the craft and found James Kirk. The captain was a curled-up ball in one back corner where the force of the descent had thrown him. 

Spock felt the awkwardness of a severely broken leg, and he heard the labored breathing that might mean broken ribs. His fingers probed the captain’s head, felt blood, and all through this examination James Kirk did not stir. It was difficult for Spock to remove his hands from the too-cool, clammy skin and turn to the others.

The father was likewise still unconscious, although he seemed to lack any additional injuries. The girl grabbed his arm when he knelt down next to her, and despite himself Spock recoiled from the touch. Then he regretted his instinctive reaction, searched for her hand, and curled their mis-matched fingers together. 

“I’m scared. My head hurts. I want my Daddy!” 

“Hush. I will take care of you. Be quiet now while I decide what to do.” 

“It’s a monster, isn’t it? There’s a monster outside and he’s going to eat us all. Mister Spock, my head hurts. It really, really hurts. Make it better, please.” 

You see the challenges that the Mother sets before us all, even those she loves. It is for the good of our _alemas,_ but it is hard on us. 

Spock found and activated an emergency lamp so he could see. Then he adjusted her seat so it was flat, loosed the bonds that held her, and found the medical kit and did what he could, which was very little. His people, the Federation, did not have the healing arts as we have them. The child was crying from the pain by the time he pressed medicine into her veins, but what he had was not powerful enough for the hurt she had sustained. Her eyes lost their focus, but still she stayed conscious, and her cries went on, quietly. The medical instrument he held told him the extent of her injuries, and his lips tightened into a thin line. He looked at her with painful affection; it was a familiar affection, first known in secret hours and directed to his captain and always, it seemed to him, it had brought him pain. He had not allowed himself to feel the joy, nor the ecstasy. 

The slightest sound of a body moving, cloth whispering against cloth, brought his head whipping around, and a moment later he was crouched in the dim light beside his reviving captain.

“Sp . . . Spock?”

“Jim, be still. You are injured.”

“Not . . . that bad. Help . . . me up.” 

“I advise against it, Captain. You may--”

“Can’t . . . just . . . sit here. Damn it, help me!”

Spock was accustomed to the stubbornness of humans and to the will of this particular human. He helped his captain into a sitting position and watched a frightening pallor overcome his skin. James Kirk swayed and might have toppled from where he leaned against the bulkhead were it not for the strong hand of his second-in-command. Spock waited while his captain breathed raggedly, sweated, and finally seemed to gather his strength simply because he told himself he must. 

“How . . . are you?”

“Functional.” 

“Be specific, First Officer.”

“I have suffered contusions and surface abrasions of the skin over eighty-three percent of my body, and there is a cut requiring suturing above my left eye. My left shoulder is wrenched, reducing movement by thirty percent. However, it is not dislocated. Body systems are strained but normalizing.” 

“That’s my . . . Spock. Good. Looks like . . . we’re going to be depending . . . on you. How’s the shuttle?”

“I will ascertain that and report to you. Please, Jim, do not attempt to move.”

“No way. This is . . . as far as I go right now.” 

Before he checked their little craft, however, Spock splinted the leg and wrapped the ribs for support. Kirk endured these ministrations in stoic silence, only catching his breath occasionally. Then Spock prepared to give Kirk the same painkiller he had administered to the girl. But Kirk’s hand stopped him. 

“No. I don’t need it.”

“That is not the truth.”

“I’m fine.”

“Jim, there is sufficient--”

“Now who’s . . . lying? I know the . . . contents of a med kit. Save it . . . for her.” 

“You are also in pain.”

“Spock, I saw the readout. She has a fractured skull. She’s dying and she’s just a kid. Save it for her.” 

Spock did not say anything more, but he placed the kit next to Kirk, where it could be reached if needed, and then he turned to examine the shuttle. 

He found that the craft was not as damaged as it might have been. Much of the damage had been caused by his own body and James Kirk’s as they smashed about the interior. The propulsion system was still functioning, navigation could be repaired with some effort, but the electrical system, most curiously, had been mostly drained of power. 

This proved a dilemma, because in these type of ships, unlike our own, electricity was needed for life support in space and initial propulsion. The battery power that remained was not sufficient for their needs. Not as advanced as they might have been, the space empire at that time. Spock reported this situation to his captain, and the two of them sat there in the dim silence, thinking, listening to an occasional whimper coming from the girl. The sound cut into Spock’s heart, which was good, because hearts should be open, and it softened James Kirk’s heart, which was also good, because he needed to truly appreciate the other virtues beyond assertive daring. 

It was difficult to think, each of them hurting in body and in soul, and with the seeds of the Mother’s change planted in them. But eventually they decided that they could scavenge sufficient items to erect a solar panel outside to generate what they needed. 

But what of the Eye? The two beings also wondered, for still they did not know what had attacked them and whether it lingered anywhere nearby. They could expend much effort to make the shuttlecraft functional and yet be slammed back to the planet on take-off. But they were like us, and so they decided to try.

The Eye did linger nearby, watching and waiting, and toying with the unknown spark it had taken from these strangers. It observed the many hours that Spock worked on a makeshift solar panel and how Kirk helped as much as he was able from his enforced position on the deck. It watched while Spock pressed food and water on the others, saw the way he cared for them. It observed the pain in the captain’s eyes, the uneasy way he shifted to ease the grating of bone, masked whenever the Vulcan was near. It observed the moment the father left this world and eased into the next, and the fear in the child’s eyes when it happened. It saw all and understood nothing. 

But it was no longer enraged, and it did not destroy these puny beings who now shared its home. It edged closer. 

Finally, after more than half a planetary cycle, the solar panel was finished. The atmosphere outside the shuttlecraft did not contain sufficient oxygen for Spock, and there were corrosive elements that would harm his skin if exposed too long, so the process of erecting the panel would be dangerous. Still sitting against the bulkhead in the back of the little ship, James Kirk watched while Spock checked the breathing mask in final preparation to go outside. 

Kirk was tensed along the entire length of his body, wishing it were he and not his friend who took this risk. He worried that Spock would collapse in the unfriendly air and he would be unable to come to his aid. This, to the captain, seemed the worst possibility: for Spock to need him, perhaps even call his name, when he would be helpless to respond. Always he wished to respond to his friend. From the first day of their meeting, Kirk had wanted to give something to his quiet second-in-command. Friendship or ease or peace of mind, he knew not what, so he attempted to give them all. Though all were good, none satisfied him. So his restlessness continued. Over the years his seeking had taken him in great looping journeys around the Vulcan, ranging far in life and experience, but always he had returned to take succor in Spock’s presence, and always, even when he was far away in thought and deed, there was a part of him that was tuned to his Vulcan. 

James Kirk watched and listened while Spock stopped to kneel next to the child. 

“Do you wish more water before I leave?”

“No. I want . . . . Mister Spock, my head still hurts. And my eyes, too. I can’t see you good.”

“Perhaps this is from the dim lighting. We are conserving power.”

“I wonder . . . if I die, will I still hurt?”

“ . . . I do not believe so.” 

“I hope I have a soul. If I die, then I’ll really still be alive, won’t I, if I have a soul.”

“ . . . That is what the human mystics would have us believe.”

“But like my Daddy said, we don’t know, do we? We just know about that Vulcan thing you have. What’s it called? The thing you taught your captain ’bout.”

“You should not expend your energy asking questions. Sleep if you can.” 

“I wanna know. What’s it called?”

“A katra.”

“And you know a ka--a katra goes on forever?”

“Yes.”

“I wish I was Vulcan. Then I wouldn’t be so afraid.” 

“Do not fear.”

“I’ll try. You going outside?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t let the monster get you.”

“I will not. Nor will I allow any monster to harm you. Now, close your eyes and attempt to sleep. ” 

He tucked the blanket about her and looked at her sternly until her eyes obediently closed. Then the expression on his face softened, and the concern for her that he felt became personal, beyond calculations of medicine and time and the extent of her injuries. There was something inside him that wanted to touch her, to perhaps stroke the side of her cheek with a finger, not to give comfort but to receive it, but he was so accustomed to denying himself that his hand never even moved. 

So he accommodated this need in another way. He searched for and found the toy animal, battered and torn but still capable of providing comfort, and he tucked it under the blanket, within the circle of the child’s arm. She smiled but obediently did not open her eyes. Thanks, she mouthed.

Then Spock walked back to his captain, who had been a silent witness, and they talked quietly.

“This should not take longer than ten minutes.”

“All right. I’ll hold down the fort. How is she?” 

“Not well. She is in considerable pain and it appears that she is losing her eyesight. It is not unexpected. McCoy would be able to operate to relieve the pressure. It would be a simple procedure. But we have no instruments.”

“And no effective medicine, either. It would be easier on her if she’d just lose consciousness.” 

“That does not appear to be happening.”

Kirk sighed and looked up at the Vulcan. 

“Be careful.” 

Spock returned the look for a moment, then without another word he turned around and entered the shuttle’s tiny airlock. Fear, and other feelings, were not spoken of between them. 

Inside the shuttle time seemed to pass very slowly. Kirk hardly knew how to contain himself, to sit quietly while another challenged fate for him. He could not see the chronometer, but he counted off the seconds in his mind, imagining what was occurring outside. Would Spock be preparing to climb the emergency rungs at the back of the craft? Would he be kneeling above Kirk’s head, fastening the panel to the bolts there? Or was he stretched out on the rocks, gasping? 

The sound of the gasping did not come from Kirk’s imagination alone, for he heard labored breathing from not far away. It was the child, responding to some new painful stimulus. 

It was not in Kirk to sit idly by when he could move to improve a situation. He was motivated by what we would call kindness, yes, but also this was a valid reason to act upon the world and not be dominated by events. And it was something he could do for Spock. 

So James Kirk took the medical kit and inched his way forward, dragging himself along the deck in a way that can never be dignified for any bi-pedal being, but any other way would have been impossible with the stabbing in his leg and in his chest, and it would have taken too much of his feeble reserves of energy. He did not stop to think about what he did, inching forward like a worm--he merely did it. 

When Spock returned, twelve point one six minutes after he had left, the captain sat next to the girl, holding her hand and crooning to her. The child tossed fitfully, her skin was flushed, her eyelids fluttering, but Spock also had eyes for the captain’s unnatural pallor and unsteadiness. Spock dropped to his knees beside them both. 

“You should not have moved, you could aggravate your injuries. She is worse?” 

“I think so. I thought it might help if I were next to her. I tried to hold her, but . . . . ” Kirk shrugged and nodded down towards his broken leg stretched before him on the gray metal floor. 

For a moment Spock considered maneuvering the child even closer to his captain, to provide more body contact. It was sensible for a human to give comfort to another human, in the language of touch and feeling that Spock had never mastered. But Kirk’s injuries prevented such a move, and was there not a far more elegant solution to this problem, one that provided comfort to both she who received and he who gave? 

You see, he could not prevent himself from thinking in the abstract language of logic, even at such a time. Spock recoiled from the emotional, self-interested part of the equation that encouraged him to take her in his arms, and he also recoiled from the pain that he knew would inevitably result as an unknown variable in this interaction with the young human. It seemed he bounced back and forth like a spring-toy that fascinates youngsters, attempting to solve this emotion-mixed problem. The child’s arm shivered in her pain, lifting. 

“Yes. Body contact may be of benefit to a human so young.”

Then Spock sat down next to Kirk and scooped the child up into his arms, settling her onto his lap with infinite gentleness, her dark head supported within the crook of an elbow. She looked up at him, her eyes too bright. She did not see him.

“That you, Mister Spock?”

“Yes. Yes, it is. I have returned to care for you.”

“Good. The monster didn’t getcha. Can I have some more medicine?” 

“Yes.”

Kirk mutely picked up a medicine delivering device from the medical kit. Before using it, he adjusted it to twice the maximum dosage with a twist of his wrist. 

Spock shook his head and whispered.

“Too much.” 

“She needs it. A normal dose doesn’t seem to be helping her.”

“You also require the--”

“No. This is going to be hard. Let’s make it easier, on all of us.”

Kirk ended the conversation by pushing the medicine into her body. 

Outside the shuttle, the Eye came closer to observe this new thing that had been done. It could feel the flow of electrons into the panel Spock had erected, and now it seemed it felt more: another flow of energy, something disturbing because of its strength, yet compelling. The Eye looked inside the tiny craft that sheltered only three lives, and it began to see something more than it had seen before.

In a matter of minutes the girl’s condition was much worse. For some unknown reason the painkiller had no effect. She tossed and convulsed within the Vulcan’s arms, and it took strength to keep her there and prevent her from hurting herself further. She cried aloud. It was difficult for the two men to do nothing more for her, to be nothing more than witnesses to her agony, but what could be done?

Ah, but there was something more. Did you know that Vulcans have the mind gifts? Yes, they are like our neighbors, the Stul. They are very private people and seldom display their abilities to reach another’s thoughts. It is part of why they do not wish to be touched and undoubtedly part of why Spock’s heart had been found but was still hidden. Kirk knew of the ways of the mind, as he was within Spock’s circle of self, and Spock had used them at Kirk’s request when there had been some great need, but it was never something done easily. 

Finally, with the child kicking and screaming in his arms, Spock said to his captain, over the girl’s tossing head, and more desperately than his calm Vulcan heritage would approve, “I must attempt to alleviate her pain. Please, allow it.” 

“Of course I allow it. Why wouldn’t I? Go ahead, do it.”

“You will be left here alone and defenseless. I would have melded with her sooner, but I have a responsibility to you and--”

“For God’s sake, the only thing happening here is that she’s dying. Don’t think about me.”

“I always think of you. But I must help her.”

Spock’s fingers curved and he reached for her contorted face, but suddenly Kirk stopped him by grabbing his hand and roughly pulling it away.

“Wait! What about the danger to you? Could she--”

“Could I also die, with her? No. I will withdraw before that happens.”

“But you could. It could happen if you don’t break the meld in time.”

“It will not happen.”

“Make sure it doesn’t, Mister. Don’t leave me without you.”

“I will not. I could not.”

“Good. Then, go. Help her.” 

Kirk released his hand, and Spock entered the child’s mind. 

Not for us to know what happens with the intimate touch of mind to mind. We are like the humans, like Kirk, who look on from outside this mysticism. James Kirk watched while the pain transferred itself from child to adult, saw Spock catch it and strive to control it, saw peace finally settle on both their faces. The girl’s rigid body rested. The shuttle was silent now except for their even breathing. 

For many hours they remained like that, the three of them huddled on the floor. Kirk could not move, and he could effect no changes. He could do nothing but watch his Vulcan friend’s face, the long curve of his fingers, and the spare eyelashes upon his cheeks. You see, he was truly a man in love, and we love the body of the being who matches our soul. Thus it was with him. He loved Spock even more for what he was doing for the girl-child, and he wished with all his might that he could spare Spock the awful task of escorting the little one who had touched him to the gates of death. And he remembered what Spock had said-- _I always think of you_ \--and the way his friend had phrased the request-- _Please allow it_ \--and he turned the words around and over in his mind. 

He fought the impulse to close his eyes and sleep. He feared to leave Spock just as Spock had feared leaving him. Suppose death came near, and Spock struggled to leave the meld, and he did not have the strength? Suppose Kirk could help him, somehow, by pulling the elegant hands from the child’s face or by calling Spock’s name? But suppose he did none of those things, and Spock died, too, because Kirk slept? 

So the captain forced himself to a rigid sitting position and blinked, and he kept vigil over his friend whom he loved.

He remembered the times he and Spock had melded. Once it had been under similar circumstances, and his friend had captured his pain even though Kirk had fought not to inflict it on him. Even as Spock had won that battle, there had been pleasure in the ethereal mental touch, a sliding, soothing oneness unlike anything James Kirk had ever experienced. He thought of the few other times, all during duty and duress, but all memorable. Desired. The captain had sometimes stayed awake at night, thinking of those times his mind and Spock’s had been conjoined, and he had wondered if Spock remembered as he did. 

He forced his mind from those seductive thoughts and concentrated on the two locked figures instead. Kirk was not one to dwell on what he believed to be unattainable.

After many hours, there was a change. The child was still, her eyes closed and her body no longer fighting. Her breaths, though, became loud and dangerous, slow upheavals of torturous sound, then agonizing, ragged exhalations. After the first few, which filled the captain’s heart with pity, the Vulcan’s chest also rose and fell in desperate concert with hers. 

Kirk watched for ten seconds, twenty, listening with fear growing, expecting any moment that Spock would release the meld and return to him . . . until he could wait no longer. He lunged across the child and grabbed at the Vulcan’s implacable fingers. He shouted to be heard over the noise of their struggle.

“Spock! Let go! Let her go!” 

Spock’s voice was strangled and thin, as if it came from a great distance. “Soon. Soon. T’Shema. Lin malenti krah. Do not be afraid.”

So Kirk stopped, though his heart thudded. 

Spock’s body bent lower and lower over the child, and it seemed to Kirk that his fingers pressed harder against her face and temples. Still their harsh breaths beat against his ears. Each breath seemed to be a journey, starting at the bottom of a hill, slowly climbing up and up to the top, struggling so hard to make it there . . . and then down down, so swiftly down that it seemed death must lay at the bottom of the precipice. And then silence, too long between inhalations while Kirk rested his hand on Spock’s wrist and felt the fluttering beat of his pulse . . . and then the journey would start again. 

Kirk counted one, two, three, four . . . . He told himself he would try to pull Spock from the meld again at thirty. 

. . . twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two . . . . He did not move his hand. He remembered too clearly the scene of the child sitting on his first officer’s lap and Spock explaining the instruments to her. At sixty he would do it. Call Spock back to him. 

And then suddenly, it was over. Spock jerked his hands away from the girl, she shuddered and called out once--it might have been _Da_ \--and then she was still. 

“Ohhhhhhh . . . . ” It was a long release of breath shared by them both. Spock hunched even lower over the body stretched out on his legs, and his hands, which were suspended in the air from the meld, dropped abruptly to his sides. 

Kirk hitched forward painfully and gently pushed wisps of dark hair back from the girl’s face. Then he bent and kissed the top of her head, where the fracture had bloodied her, and whispered, “From me, little one. Have no pain.” 

When he looked up, Spock had straightened but he was trembling and his eyes were tightly closed. The Vulcan wrapped his arms about his waist and groaned. And groaned again. This was not normal grief. Kirk had seen many deaths, had sorrowed for his own loved ones’ passing. This was something more. Kirk feared some exotic aftermath of the meld that he did not understand and would not be able to act on. Spock’s face had that shuttered, concentrated look of the mystical Vulcan mind arts. Fear stabbed him even stronger then it had before. Was the meld over or wasn’t it? Was Spock still tied somehow to the girl? He grabbed the Vulcan by the shoulders and turned him.

“Spock! Spock!”

... ... ... 

“What’s wrong? Are you all right?”

... ... ... 

“Spock, answer me!”

“I am . . . I am . . . . ”

... ... ... 

“Is it the meld? Spock, tell me so I can do something for you! Is it the meld? Are you in pain because of the meld?” 

“No! Yes. Nooooo.” 

“It is the meld.”

“ . . . No.”

“What can I do to help you?”

... ... ... 

“Spock, open your eyes. Come on, open them!”

... ... ... 

“Look at me! This is Jim!”

“Jim.” 

“Yes, it’s Jim. Open . . . . That’s better.”

“Jim.”

“I’m here for you, Spock. Can you see me?”

“Jim. The joining was . . . . ” 

... ... ... 

“Take it easy. You’re okay now, you’re with me.”

“With you.”

“Right. Feel my hand? Hold my hand, Spock, feel it? You’re out of the meld now. You’re with me.”

“The meld was . . . was . . . . Jim.”

“Take it easy. It’s okay. You’re with me.”

“That is . . . . ”

“Take your time, don’t rush. Take a breath.”

... ... ... 

“Better?”

“That is . . . how the meld was. Like it is . . . with you.”

“With me?”

“Melding with you is so easy.”

“I’ve always loved joining with you, Spock.”

“Our minds are compatible. I slide into your essence and we are one without effort.”

“I know. That’s how it is with me, too. It’s beautiful.”

“ _Maghlanai._ That is the word. Cohesion of thought, unity of spirit. I had not thought to ever experience it except with you.”

“But you did?”

“Almost. Her mind . . . . Jim, she had much to give. I caught just a glimpse of what she offered. If only she had lived.” 

“I know, I know. She was special, somehow.” 

“She was very fearful, at the end.” 

“Oh, God. That must have been so hard for you.”

“I helped her as I could. But I was tempted . . . . Such congruence. Such cohesion. Maghlanai. It was such a temptation.”

“Spock, you’re not making sense. What was the temptation?”

“Her katra. I could have taken her katra to myself and carried it.”

... ... ... 

“You could have?”

“Yes.”

“I thought . . . I didn’t know it was possible. With humans. I’ve heard the rumors . . . . ”

“It was possible. Our minds . . . they fit. Not as well as yours and mine do. But still . . . . She was afraid. And I let her go, alone.” 

“Maybe you couldn’t have done it. Maybe your hu--”

“Negative. I am gifted with the Vulcan mind. I know I could have taken her.”

“But you didn’t, and now you wish you had?”

“I . . . wish circumstances were . . . . I do not wish to speak of this.”

... ... ... 

“Okay.”

... ... ... 

“I have never accompanied one so far, Jim. To feel her on the edge, and not to act . . . . ” 

“It was hard on you.” 

“Most difficult.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Spock. I’m sure you had a good reason for what you did.” 

“I . . . believe so. I am not sure.” 

... ... ... 

“Are you all right, now?”

“Yes.” 

“I grieve with thee, my friend.”

The two men sat there in the darkness with the girl’s body growing cold between them. They did not say anything more to each other for many minutes, although Kirk retained his hold on his friend’s hand. Even so, their comfort with one another had been shattered. Spock wrestled with his conscience and his desires, and Kirk could not believe that Spock could have been selfish or fearful of taking the child’s katra. This new space between them was not the silence of not-speaking, for like matched lovers they often did not use words, but rather there was an impediment that blocked the free flow of intent and feeling that usually ran like pure water from one to the other. There were multiple layers of silence in the Federation craft and many questions. 

So in silence they both looked down at the child and between them, unseen, was the Eye. 

Never before had it experienced such events or beings. Never before had it confronted concepts so totally new, outside of its rage. There was something welling up from within the Eye, something self-generated and too frightening even for it to face. It pushed the feeling away, but it remained, unexpressed. The Eye trembled.

After a time, Spock straightened and seemed to come back to himself fully. He gently edged the body from his legs to the deck. He stood stiffly, looking down. 

“We will need to dispose of the bodies.” 

“I know. There’s no way we can keep them on the shuttle for the next few days.”

“Agreed. If we manage to achieve escape velocity, the journey to the nearest Federation outpost will take three point three two five days at the minimum.”

“And we don’t know how many more hours before we can lift-off. We’ll have to take them outside. You will. Can you do it?”

“Affirmative.” 

And so it was that Spock again braved the planet’s atmosphere, and the Eye moved with him every step of the way, learning more with each second. It hovered over the Vulcan’s shoulder when he heaved a man-sized boulder from where it had rested for millennia, and it watched while the three bodies were laid side by side, the girl in the middle between the two men, in the natural curve of dirt that was revealed. The toy animal he also brought and placed in her arms.

Spock could have used a phaser to disintegrate the organic molecules. It would perhaps have been logical. But the Eye recoiled as it sensed the thought building in the Vulcan’s mind, for it wished the bodies to remain where they were. Who is to say or know what its motivation was? In its ignorant state, perhaps it did not understand death and wished for companionship, even from bodies that had drawn their last breath. 

Whatever its reasoning, the Eye would have stopped Spock before he drew his weapon, but the Vulcan did not. He could not bring himself to vaporize the mortal remains of beings he had known even so briefly; he could not extinguish the girl earlier than nature would take her. Instead he paused and attempted to compose his mind for the meditation that was customary for his people on relinquishing a life to the soil, but he could not. He felt raw and weak after coming so close to experiencing death through the meld, and he felt uncertain of the reasoning that had prevented him from taking the child’s katra. It had beckoned him, had shone like a sun. But even as he had been tempted, he had thought of Kirk, and of his mind, of his katra, and the sun that blazed inside Spock only because of Kirk. Oddly enough, young though she was, the girl had seemed to understand, and in the end had not entreated him for anything but help in the cessation of pain.

And here was the value that the Mother saw in Spock’s mind, even though it was different from ours, as I have told you. There is value in many things. For even through Spock’s grief and distress, his confusion and his guilt, his reasoning still functioned in the logical way of his people. As he stood there over the gravesite, his mind formed an equation: the pain of the sacrifice of the girl’s katra must be equal to the benefit received from the sacrifice. But there would be no benefit unless Kirk were added as the most complex variable of all, and Kirk did not know he played an intimate part in the equation that ruled Spock’s heart; he would not know unless Spock told him. Without his captain, nothing balanced.

Spock turned then and lifted his eyes to the shuttle, which listed to one side because of damage to its supports, but still it provided sanctuary to Kirk. He stood there for a long time, just looking.

Then, with energy, he covered the bodies with small rocks and dirt. The Eye saw his quick, resolute movements and reached inside to touch what drove him. It recoiled. It hurt to touch Spock. His pain was fresh and genuine. There was something else there as well, but the Eye did not understand it. The pain it knew now and understood; this other was a mystery still. It had to do with the child in the dirt, and yet, not. Curious, the Eye followed Spock when he turned from a silent moment over the grave and went back to the shuttle. 

Spock walked directly to where his captain had maintained his death vigil for so long. He sat down across from him, cross-legged. 

“Everything go okay?”

“Yes, it did.”

“How’s the solar panel?”

“Functioning. Jim, I would like to speak with you.”

“Go ahead.” 

“You must wonder why I spoke to you concerning the child’s katra. Why I acted as I did.”

... ... ... 

“I guess I think it’s your own business. Except I know you did what you think was best. You don’t have to tell me anything, Spock.”

“But I do, or the sacrifice would be in vain.”

“The sacrifice?”

“Her katra--for yours.”

... ... ... 

“I don’t think I understand.”

“Do you wish to?”

“ . . . Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Vulcans vary in their psychic abilities. Healers are extraordinarily gifted, and among their other duties they can adopt the katra of a dying patient and escort it to the Hall of Ancient Thought. Or they might ease its release to eternity, whichever is the wish of the individual. When healers relinquish katras they are able to repeat the procedure for others who need them.”

“All right. Go on.”

“Most Vulcans, however, do not have that extraordinary ability. Most of the general population is capable of carrying one katra, but not more. Ever.” 

“So, one Vulcan, one katra?”

“Yes.”

“If you had taken the girl’s katra . . . . ”

“I would most likely not have been able to carry another in my lifetime.” 

“You mean mine.”

“Yes. Yours.”

“Spock . . . . I don’t know what to say. The chance that we’ll be together when I--”

“There is more.”

“Tell me.”

“My people do not marry.”

“I know.”

“They bond. It is a--”

“--a lifetime commitment of ‘minds in harmony, spirits entwined.’ From one of your more lyrical poets.”

“You have read the works of Sinet?”

“Yes. I haven’t always understood, but I’ve read.”

“I find that . . . . Jim, what do you know of the mental aspects of the bond?”

“Not much. Tell me.” 

“One member of a bonded couple is capable of assuming the other’s katra, even over a distance. And carrying it for many years, until both are ready to relinquish this life, together.” 

“That’s what you . . . . You say it.”

“That is what I wish for us.” 

... ... ... 

“I’ve been looking for something, Spock, for a long time.”

“It is why you have read the works of Sinet.”

“Have I found what I’ve been looking for? Have you found what you’ve been looking for? Could it be me?”

“From a month of our first meeting, it has been you.”

“I love you, you know. Have for a long time. Never knew how to say it to you, though.”

“I do not comprehend the emotion in its entirety, but I know that I wish for none other as my bondmate, with whom to share my life and my mind. To share your katra and enter eternity with you.”

“Damn this broken leg! And these ribs!”

“ . . . I beg your pardon?”

“I want to kiss you in the worst way, my romantic and most surprising Vulcan, but I can’t bend enough. Hurts too much.”

“Then I will accomplish the maneuver for you.” 

... ... ... 

... ... ... 

“God, I love you.”

“I treasure you.”

... ... ... 

“You feel so good. Taste good. I can’t believe this is happening.”

“It is no dream.”

“I just wish all this hadn’t had to happen to bring us to our senses.”

“Yes.”

“She was a special child.”

“You should have felt her mind, Jim. Dynamic. Wide as well as deep, and at such a young age. There was something within, some hidden strength I was not able to plumb, but I sensed it. She would have been an extraordinary adult. It is a sorrow to lose her.”

“I’ll remember her.”

“We will. Together.”

The Eye left them like that, awkwardly entwined on the cold, dark floor of their spacecraft, with Spock’s fingers reaching for their first lovers’ meld. It went to hover over the gravesite instead and stayed there many hours, even when Spock emerged from the craft to dismantle the solar panel, even when the shuttle began to vibrate in preparation for takeoff. It brooded, seeking to understand these concepts: sacrifice, love, remembering.

The Eye watched while the craft left the surface of that solitary planet and did not attempt to stop it when it faded to a dot and then disappeared entirely. 

Sacrifice.

Love.

Remembering.

The Eye was all alone now, as it had been for years uncounted. But now it knew. Now it _understood._ It had _become._ And it could not bear its loneliness. 

The electricity that the Eye had stolen from the shuttle stirred within it, organizing and energizing the formaldehyde, the methane, the ammonia, the hydrogen atoms that before had comprised the plasma creature, Spawn of the Dragon. 

No more. 

The thin, corrosive atmosphere stirred. A cloud, wispy at first and unseen for centuries, gathered on the horizon, came closer. It hovered over where the Eye was taking solid form, and suddenly a white column appeared and shot from the ground to the cloud, taking with it the Eye-that-had-been and the gift that the strangers, unknown, unseen, had given to the planet. Water vapor. 

The Eye/the Cloud grew larger. Thunder rolled from one hilltop to another. Lightning flashed directly on the shallow covering of dirt over the bodies. Organic molecules.

So alone, the Eye/the Cloud was now. It was changed beyond recognition even if the Dragon were to return, and it was repulsed by the death it had given and horrified by its own ugliness. You see, it had not known before. Now it realized what it was.

The Eye wept. For the first time in many long years on the dusty planet, rain fell.

And that is the story of how we began. What? You say you do not understand? Surely you have guessed by now. The girl-child, she of the darkest hair, the unknown depths, the catalyst that brought together the two lovers who had been given the gift: she was the Mother. The two who were her companions in death were her heavenly guards, Adel and Bedel, always at her side.

We are the Mother’s children. She bequeathed to us our souls of light and happiness and earnest trying. We are also the children of the Eye, Spawn of the Dragon, who gave us the darkness within, the anger, and the frustration. The Eye gave moisture at last to the dried-up planet, our planet-that-was, and created this paradise we now call home. Though this is one of the Great Tales, the Greatest of them, still it must conform to the laws of nature. Water and the correct amino acids formed on an almost lifeless planet. The Eye’s tears and the remnants of the Mother’s body made us, her children. It is the way it was. From death, life springs.

And in each of us, even the most ordinary of us, the seeds of greatness have been sown. It is a lesson from the Mother in the being of one small girl.

And what of James Kirk and Spock? Ah, listen to the Lesser Songs and you will hear of them. They are the paired stars in the northern sky, the sun-kissed hero and his dark companion. They lived long and adventurous lives, giving us much of what we know of sacrifice and love, and we remember them. At the end, Spock took Kirk’s katra unto himself, and then he spread his soul upon eternity, bound forever with his love. 

The Mother welcomed them. 

 

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published in KaleidoScope #7, 1998, edited by Emily Adams.


End file.
